My Visual Poem

My visual poem is about enjoying life. I wanted to tell people to enjoy life and do things that make you happy. For my visuals, I used a lot of pictures but they still show feeling. In most of my pictures you'll see someone laughing or smiling. You can really see that they're enjoying life. 

To make the mood of my poem a little more exciting, I added an effect called Ken Burns. This is a type of panning and zooming effect used on videos. So for most f my pictures I zoomed in on someone laughing or smiling to show that they are enjoying life. I think the ken burns helped show what I was trying to show in my pictures.

I am kind of satisfied with my results. I definitely could have made it better by using more videos and less pictures. It was kind of difficult for me to do this poem though because of how short it is, so the time for videos or pictures was very limited. I think next time I could think out a better way to show happiness and fun instead of all pictures.

Real World Report

The story I was interested in is called "No Death Penalty for Dad Charger in Toddler Death". This story is about a father leaving his toddler in a car for about seven hour. It was said that while his son was in the car, his father was sending nudes to ladies in his office. He not only sent nudes to women of age but also to underage women. The jury states that without 100% evidence that he intended to kill his son, they would not give him the death penalty. But he is facing murder charges.

I feel that he should be charged with two life sentences because if he got charged with only one death penalty, its a possibility that he could get out and that is not really fair. I feel that if he was capable of letting his own blood child suffer in the car with no air while it was very hot, he should stay in jail and be treated like a criminal. He should suffer just like his son did. In my opinion, people like that should suffer instead of just being killed easily. They should serve time around other criminals that can make him suffer.

I think people should be aware of this story because it is very cruel. People should see how important life is and how ones life can be taken at any time of day for any reason. It is also important for people to see this story so that they can see how dangerous our world is. There is a lot of people in the world that have really cruel minds and we need to be careful on everything we do.

Lessons Learned

So far this project has been quite interesting. I think the most interesting part was getting to hear people talk about their experiences through different hurricanes. I enjoyed hearing their stories and it made me realize that we need always be prepared. One of the interviewees stated that for hurricane Iniki, they did not get very much time to prepare because the hurricane was supposed to go pass the islands, but at the last moment it took a 90 degree turn and headed straight for Kauai. I love hearing all these different stories because I now feel I will be more prepared and ready for a hurricane if one happened to come.

Our biggest challenge to over come was editing all the interviews and getting B-roll. It was hard editing the interviews because we had six, and they were all pretty long. It was a struggle editing out all the mistakes and even the little ones because there was a lot and we wanted it to be perfect. The B-roll was alos a really hard thing to overcome because we had to catch videos of going down streets and roads which was very hard to film because of the camera movement. I did but the camera on a tripod but with the car moving and bumpy rods, the camera still shook a little.

I think the most valuale part of the film making process was interacting with my group. It was very nice being able to work with each one of them individually and listen to their different ideas. I loved how the group I was in was/is very full of spirit and always smiling. Although we ran into some problems, we were able to keep smiles  throughout it all.

Hiki Nō Behind the Scenes

For this project my team and I decided to do a news story. Our news story is based on hurricanes because of the great danger it can cause. We also chose this story because 2014's hurricane season in Hawai'i has been very active. Thankfully, so far this year we have not yet been hit with anything major. But we still keep our eyes open for any slight chances because we have heard or gone through experiences of past hurricanes and the tragedy it did to Kaua'i and the rest of Hawai'i.  So my team and I really want to send the message out to people that hurricanes are not something that should be taken lightly, you should be prepared; hope for the best, prepare for the worst.

So far we have gotten several interviews from family members and friends. We asked them questions like "What advice would you give to people that have not yet been through a hurricane?" and "If you have been through a hurricane, how did it affect you?". We asked various people these same questions so that we can get different ideas and perspectives and help people get a better visual on how and why you should be prepared for a hurricane.

When the camera is not rolling, my team and I are usually editing our interviews and B-rolls to make sure everything makes sense and looks good. We may look like we are just goofing around but we definitely are also doing work. I love my team because each one of us have our own great personalities and we get along well and help each other figure out problems (a lot of problems). Fixing those problems sometimes aren't easy but I think having five of us to put our brains together really help. I think to do my fair share and help the team I can talk a little less and brain storm more idea's for our B-roll. It is kind of difficult to find good b-roll because hurricanes aren't happening every day in Hawai'i (fortunately) but if i think hard enough, I'll come up with something. Stay tuned to Hiki Nō on your T.V. to hopefully see our finished product. Team Credits : Leleaka Anakalea, Russel Fu, Seth Kostelecky, and Noa Harrison.

The Experiment

Our very first project was named "The Experiment". For this project we needed to create any kind of project in photoshop. It may seem fairly easy, but the catch was that our teacher, Mr. Sanderl was not going to answer any question we had. He wanted everyone to get out of their comfort zone, including himself. Everyone struggled in one way or another, and Mr. Sanderl also struggled on holding himself back from helping us. This was an important project because it made us think deep and problem solve on our own using other programs to find answers. The down side of this project was that it took a little longer to complete it because we had to do a lot of research to find out how to do certain things. Although it was a struggle for myself, I enjoyed it very much!

Back to School

My summer was filled with many laughs and great memories, but now its time to go back to school. So far this school year has been good, Ive met many new people and made many new friends. My favorite moment so far was hanging out with all of my friends at recess at lunch. I love talking story and having laughs with them all. My biggest challenge was when my class and I got assigned to start our first project in photoshop. For this project, our teacher Mr. Sanderl let us do anything we wanted to, but there was a catch. The catch was that he was not going to help us at all, we just had to use whatever knowledge we already had. Many people had a lot of experience with photoshop, but many students had no knowledge what so ever with photoshop. Many of the students helped each other and used our different tools like safari to learn how to use the application. For my first project, I chose to do a deface animation. I learned how to do this last school year in this same class. Although I learned how to do this "Deface" project, my memory was faded. I had a hard time remembering a lot of the steps, but with deep thought I was able to figure it out.

Deface Project (Unfinished)

This year I will be successful by doing all my work on time and stop procrastinating. This year I plan to be more aware of my grades and stop focusing on other unimportant things. I am going to make sure to be early and on time to every class. Before school started I made sure to be prepared with all my pencils and paper, so now I just have to put it to use.

Metamorphosis Animation

For this metamorphosis animation project, we needed to use different types of animation to make an interesting story. The animation we made, needed to make people think deeper into it to find the true meaning of the story. The group that I was in chose to use stop motion, digital art, and claymation. Our first scene was me playing as the bully, walking into the scene and picking up my victim (the flower) and tearing it down. Then we made the broken teared up flower travel down the stairs and a friend (Keegan Kessler) came to put the flower bak together. The friend picks up all the broken pieces of the flower and slowly pieces it back together into its normal self. Then the flower climbs back up the stairs and morphs into itself (Leleaka Anakalea). We tried to show that their will always be someone there for you and to keep you going. So even though the bully (me) broke the little flower, her friend was right there to help her.

I liked the way our video came out because it was interesting and really made you think. If I could go back and fix one thing, it would be the stop motion. Since stop motion is kind of to trick the eye, we could have made someone flying instead of just walking across the room. Although there is room for some improvement, overall I think  my team and I did pretty good.